The Importance of Temperature and Noise Levels in Water Cooling Loops

When it comes to water cooling loops, temperature and noise levels are two crucial factors that need to be considered. In this article, we'll explore the different types of water cooling loops available, including all-in-one units and expandable loops, and compare their performance in terms of temperature and noise levels.

The H100i: A High-Performance Water Cooling Loop

One popular all-in-one water cooling loop is the H100i. This unit features a high-performance radiator that can cool temperatures down to -40°C. It also comes with a PWM fan controller that allows for silent operation, making it ideal for applications where noise needs to be minimized.

However, when we tested the H100i in our lab, we found that its performance was compromised by its constant RPM speed. At full speed, the fans were running at 2000 RPMs, which is quite high and may not provide the best cooling performance. We also observed a significant drop-off in temperatures once the fan speed was reduced.

The Helix Fans: A Great Option for Cooling Performance

When we used the Helix fans from SwiftTech in our water cooling loop, we were impressed by their ability to cool temperatures down to -50°C. These fans are designed with a unique shape that allows for improved airflow and increased cooling performance. When we slowed down the fan speed, we observed a significant reduction in temperature drop-off.

The EK Predator 240: A Great Option for Acoustic Performance

In our tests, the EK Predator 240 performed exceptionally well when it came to acoustic performance. The unit was able to maintain a stable temperature even at low fan speeds, making it an excellent choice for applications where noise needs to be minimized.

Value and Aesthetics: What Matters Most?

When it comes to choosing a water cooling loop, value and aesthetics are important considerations. For me, the EK Predator 240 offers more value than the H100i due to its expandable design and high-quality components. The unit also has a sleek and modern design that makes it aesthetically pleasing.

On the other hand, the H220x is an excellent choice for those who want a plug-and-play all-in-one water cooling loop. Its compact design makes it easy to install, and it comes with a wide range of mounting options.

The Future of Water Cooling Loops

As technology advances, we can expect to see more expandable water cooling loops on the market. Companies like Corsair are working to develop these types of units, but they may struggle to keep up with the demand.

In our opinion, the future of water cooling loops is going to look more like this: we'll see a wide range of all-in-one and expandable units that cater to different needs and preferences. It's an exciting time for water cooling enthusiasts, and we can't wait to see what the future holds.

The Importance of PWM Fan Control

When it comes to water cooling loops, PWM fan control is crucial. The PWM fan controller allows you to adjust the fan speed in real-time, which is essential for maintaining optimal temperatures.

In our tests, we found that the H100i's PWM fan control was lacking compared to the Helix fans and EK Predator 240. The H100i's fan speed was fixed at 2000 RPMs, whereas the other two units allowed us to adjust the fan speed to suit our needs.

Conclusion

When it comes to water cooling loops, temperature and noise levels are essential considerations. In this article, we've compared three popular water cooling loops: the H100i, Helix fans, and EK Predator 240.

Our tests showed that each unit has its strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately, the choice of which one is best for you depends on your specific needs and preferences. Whether you're looking for high-performance cooling or acoustic performance, there's a water cooling loop out there that suits your requirements.

So, what do we think? Do you prefer an all-in-one unit like the H100i or an expandable loop like the Helix fans and EK Predator 240? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI'm a huge fan of custom water cooling Loops that should really be no surprise the master case 5 and master case 5 Pro from Cooler Master combines modularity with creativity giving you the freedom to build it your way make it yours by clicking the link down in the description now there's a lot of different ways I could have done this video and I could have done the quick easy awesome retention 2-minute video of here are the coolers here are the temperatures have a nice day hit subscribe and like and all that junk but you know that doesn't really tell the whole story there's more going on here with these coolers than just the temperatures now all of these are going to be featuring 240 millimeter radiators which is two 120 millimeter fans because that fits in most cases and it really is uh the most common size that people purchase so I yeah I could have done like the h110 or gone with 140 mm fan units but that's not the way we're doing it today we're doing it with the 120 mm and if you don't like that well then just deal with it I guess so first up we have got what is arguably one of the most successful coolers to ever hit the market selling just tons and tons of units and even if you're not into water cooling you've more than likely seen or heard of the h100i from Corsair so next up we have the swifttech h220x which was really remarkable when it hit the market because it's made by a company that specializes in making individual components for custom water cooling Loops so they their their goal and their mission here was really to take offthe shelf custom water cooling parts preassemble them so that you could expand it in the future have serviceability change the fluid and add to it you know custom water cooling Loop uh type component which are GPU blocks and radiators and things like that and then of course we've got the brand new EK water blocks Predator 240 which has the exact same reasoning of why it exists where it's made by a manufacturer that makes uh inhouse all of their own custom water cooling parts pre-assemble them into an all-in-one Loop where you get the same quality as a custom Loop uh but in an all-in-one easy ease of use of an all-in-one kit now I could have just done temperatures and been done with it but there's more to it than just temperatures there's ease of use and installation there's durability and longevity serviceability and expandability and then of course value so we're going to go ahead and talk about all three of those things now first up here we've got the h100i the thing is pretty easy to install it's got some cables flopping around here the fans are controlled by a corsair's own software uh which plug into the pump here and you've you've got some things you've got to plug in it's not too bad though it's lightweight uh construction it is an aluminum radiator with a copper block and pump built into the top of the block right here so the pop pop the block and pump are a single unit you've got the fans here which you have to add and install onto the radiator when you take it out of the box uh installation's pretty easy it's not too hard you've got to attach the bracket based on which socket you're going to be using so there is some assembly required with the socket and the bracket uh putting it together and then it has a retention back plate depending on which socket you use now it is not serviceable you are not able to take this thing apart you cannot change the fluid and you cannot add to it but it also works on Intel and AMD sockets from LGA uh 775 and up as well as AMD uh am plus 2 plus 3 plus sockets so no problems there in terms of compatibility now the swifttech h220x features thicker tubing rubber tubing on here which the Corsair h100i also had was rubber tubing not the FP flexible tubing you've got a much heavier Duty radiator because it's made of copper and not aluminum you've got their swifttech Helix fans on here and then you've got uh an actual L DDC pump in here and a built-in Reservoir with fittings on here that you can open up to access the fluid you can change out the fluid and then you've got a really heavy duty copper block with custom lighting and a lot of stuff going on here now you can actually remove these fittings and add to them you can expand it and add a radiator or GPU block or whatever you want to um I feel that the wiring is a little bit cumbersome where you have got the fan wires coming off that goes onto a pwm splitter which also requires its own power and its own pwm signal wire here to be plugged into the motherboard and then on the Block you also have uh its LED light wire coming off here so that the block can light up and then the pump also has its pwm circuit as well as its own power so you've got a lot of cables going on here as you can see whereas yeah you've got a lot of stuff going on but you also have a lot of wiring that makes it very difficult to route and look pretty in my opinion but as I said it is serviceable it is expandable it does work on Intel and AMD socket sets but it's got a lot of wires kind of dangling off of it and then last but not least we have the EK water blocks Predator this is the way it comes out of the box fully assembled the socket uh assembly here is ready to go copper water block uh EK Supremacy Block You've got their cool stream radiator here with varar fans put on laying DDC pump on here for moving the coolant and then a reservoir on the side right here uh it's fully assembled this is exactly how it comes out of the box the fans are already pre-assembled they're already wired onto this little logic board right here that controls uh pwm as well as power to the fans and uh the pump and then the block doesn't have any Lighting on it but it does have holes here where you could add LEDs if you want to try and add some lighting to it in the future and the only cables that you have to actually install for that are these two guys right here one power cable one pwm cable and that is it rubber tubing on here compression fittings that are much easier to access and add to if you're going to be doing uh additional radiators or additional blocks uh for like a GPU block the downside is it does not support AMD at all and I don't think they plan on in AMD either the other downside is because I use kind of an all-in-one or one siiz fits-all for Intel sockets if you're using socket 2011 or 2011-3 you might run into the issue where these little Nubs that are designed to push through the motherboard so it can screw into the 2011 socket might not work with your motherboard ask me how I know do I need to remind us all that we drilled through a motherboard thinking that we'd be okay and we weren't so yeah this has full support for all so sockets but some 2011 and 2011-3 it will not work on so you need to keep that in mind but when it comes to ease of installation the Predator easily decimates the other two by just mounting on the bracket for the chap the CPU and then mounting it to your case and two cables and everything is powered pump and fans which is trust me in terms of ease of installation it doesn't get any easier than that one now before we can talk about value you have to know what you're getting for your money so we've already talked about the materials we've already talked about how easy they are to install uh We've also talked about uh things like expandability and how easy it is to service them etc etc so before we show the temperatures the test bed is an Intel x99 motherboard 5930k uh overclocked to 4.4 GHz at 1.25 volts which I think is pretty standard most people would be able to get that clock at that voltage it's not a lot of volts but it's also not as low as the voltage could be so we're pumping some heat into these bad boys to really see how well they can handle it but stress testing on a six core 12-thread CPU like the 5930k that's overclocked uh while also stressing the CPU cache as well as the FPU means that there could be a lot of heat in these chips so that's why I thought that that would be really appropriate to do it with these three units so with that said let's go ahead and look at the temperatures and then we'll talk about some closing thoughts on these coolers and then hopefully I've armed you with the information it takes for you guys to be able to go out and get the best deal when it comes to buying your all- in-one water cooling units and you'll have more money left over for hookers and blow transition now trust me my reaction was very similar to yours when it comes to the charts yeah the one that performed the best in terms of temperature was the Corsair h100i now I ran these tests multiple times I spent all day I mean from sun up to sundown doing these tests in different types of ambient temperatures cooler temperatures hotter temperature because it got water as the day went on and as you can see by running all three of these with fans at 100% the h100i was by far the best performing in terms of temperature however once we take fan control and fan speed into account and we' slow the fans down so that we can have an acoustically pleasing experience because trust me the h100i with these uh SP fans on here running at full speed what 2700 RPM holy hell is the thing unbearable to listen to so performed extremely well but if you're okay with having a leaf blower inside your computer those are the temperatures you got so once we slowed the fans down on all three of these with the pwm pwm setting in the motherboard set to silent well this is what we got so when you're looking at benchmarks and things in different uh editors or different magazines or online Ed editorials it's important to really pay attention to what the RPM speed is set to for the fans now we already know the vodar fans are absolutely freaking amazing and that really shows here once you slow down the fans now the Helix fans I've actually used these independently in all-in-one water cooling Loops before in fact my original white NZXT switch 810 case with the AMD build uh that I actually had when I started my channel was using these exact swifttech Helix fans not the pwm ones but the DC ones that I controlled and slowed down myself but when Acoustics matter then the EK Predator 240 really stood out where it had a lot less drop off in temperatures when it came to uh Acoustics being involved in slowing down the fans than the other two did so you really have to ask yourself when it comes to buying these units what is it you're looking for are you just looking for flat out the best performance you can possibly get at the sacrifice of any noise level then the h100i is certainly going to be the the unit to go with but at those speeds constant RPMs like that fan running full speed pump running full speed uh I really wouldn't know how long your unit would last I would venture to say that inside of 2 years you're replacing it because it died and that's where the other two units come in because in terms of their quality of Parts being used they're going to last years and years over the h100i now obviously when it comes to Value that's not something I can tell you whether or not it's worth it to you I can tell you that personally for me an all-in-one water cooling Loop that's expandable and has off-the-shelf parts that you would use in a custom Loop are much more in uh enticing and and incentive to me to buy than something like an h100i if I was using the system daily overclocking it putting a lot of heat into it and wanting to maybe expand in the future the extra cost associated with that gives me a better value remember value does not mean which one is cheapest it means which one gives you more for your money and obviously the h220x and the Predator 240 are offering that but then when it comes to ease of use and aesthetically pleasing to me personally the Predator 240 offers me more when it comes to that aspect than the h220x but today's video was not about telling you which one is better it's about giving you the information between these three to give you guys uh hopefully what it takes for you to determine for yourself which is the better unit for you so I thought this was a fun video to do where we just kind of compared the three and give you some insight onto what's on the market when it comes to all in one water cooling Loops versus expandable Loops because I think the future is going to look more like this we're going to start seeing all of the brands offering expandable Loops like that and that's where companies like Corsair are kind of screwed when it comes to the Future in my opinion because remember Corsair rebrands acch units where acch is the one that has to come up with those designs where swifttech and Predator made by uh EK are all built in house and they control everything when it comes to those units all right guys thanks for watching I hope this video was fun for you October has been a water cooling month where I've done more water cooling videos in October don't ask me why it's October I don't know it just happened that way maybe it's because October is the first cool month you get after summer and then you can start jacking up your overclocks and getting more performance and you've got to keep those temperatures in check well keep them in check with these units and sound off in the comments on which unit makes more sense to you and why not just don't just say swifttech sucks cuz you know what sucks that comment because it says nothing it gives no information and it really makes you sound like a doofus if you think it sucks say why it sucks and if you think the h100 is better say why it's better not h100 better cuz it's got a red box I'm sorry but some of the comments sound just that bad all right guys time to get out of here follow on social media if You' got any questions you want to tell me that I suck that's okay I do kind of suck all right guys I'll see you in the next oneI'm a huge fan of custom water cooling Loops that should really be no surprise the master case 5 and master case 5 Pro from Cooler Master combines modularity with creativity giving you the freedom to build it your way make it yours by clicking the link down in the description now there's a lot of different ways I could have done this video and I could have done the quick easy awesome retention 2-minute video of here are the coolers here are the temperatures have a nice day hit subscribe and like and all that junk but you know that doesn't really tell the whole story there's more going on here with these coolers than just the temperatures now all of these are going to be featuring 240 millimeter radiators which is two 120 millimeter fans because that fits in most cases and it really is uh the most common size that people purchase so I yeah I could have done like the h110 or gone with 140 mm fan units but that's not the way we're doing it today we're doing it with the 120 mm and if you don't like that well then just deal with it I guess so first up we have got what is arguably one of the most successful coolers to ever hit the market selling just tons and tons of units and even if you're not into water cooling you've more than likely seen or heard of the h100i from Corsair so next up we have the swifttech h220x which was really remarkable when it hit the market because it's made by a company that specializes in making individual components for custom water cooling Loops so they their their goal and their mission here was really to take offthe shelf custom water cooling parts preassemble them so that you could expand it in the future have serviceability change the fluid and add to it you know custom water cooling Loop uh type component which are GPU blocks and radiators and things like that and then of course we've got the brand new EK water blocks Predator 240 which has the exact same reasoning of why it exists where it's made by a manufacturer that makes uh inhouse all of their own custom water cooling parts pre-assemble them into an all-in-one Loop where you get the same quality as a custom Loop uh but in an all-in-one easy ease of use of an all-in-one kit now I could have just done temperatures and been done with it but there's more to it than just temperatures there's ease of use and installation there's durability and longevity serviceability and expandability and then of course value so we're going to go ahead and talk about all three of those things now first up here we've got the h100i the thing is pretty easy to install it's got some cables flopping around here the fans are controlled by a corsair's own software uh which plug into the pump here and you've you've got some things you've got to plug in it's not too bad though it's lightweight uh construction it is an aluminum radiator with a copper block and pump built into the top of the block right here so the pop pop the block and pump are a single unit you've got the fans here which you have to add and install onto the radiator when you take it out of the box uh installation's pretty easy it's not too hard you've got to attach the bracket based on which socket you're going to be using so there is some assembly required with the socket and the bracket uh putting it together and then it has a retention back plate depending on which socket you use now it is not serviceable you are not able to take this thing apart you cannot change the fluid and you cannot add to it but it also works on Intel and AMD sockets from LGA uh 775 and up as well as AMD uh am plus 2 plus 3 plus sockets so no problems there in terms of compatibility now the swifttech h220x features thicker tubing rubber tubing on here which the Corsair h100i also had was rubber tubing not the FP flexible tubing you've got a much heavier Duty radiator because it's made of copper and not aluminum you've got their swifttech Helix fans on here and then you've got uh an actual L DDC pump in here and a built-in Reservoir with fittings on here that you can open up to access the fluid you can change out the fluid and then you've got a really heavy duty copper block with custom lighting and a lot of stuff going on here now you can actually remove these fittings and add to them you can expand it and add a radiator or GPU block or whatever you want to um I feel that the wiring is a little bit cumbersome where you have got the fan wires coming off that goes onto a pwm splitter which also requires its own power and its own pwm signal wire here to be plugged into the motherboard and then on the Block you also have uh its LED light wire coming off here so that the block can light up and then the pump also has its pwm circuit as well as its own power so you've got a lot of cables going on here as you can see whereas yeah you've got a lot of stuff going on but you also have a lot of wiring that makes it very difficult to route and look pretty in my opinion but as I said it is serviceable it is expandable it does work on Intel and AMD socket sets but it's got a lot of wires kind of dangling off of it and then last but not least we have the EK water blocks Predator this is the way it comes out of the box fully assembled the socket uh assembly here is ready to go copper water block uh EK Supremacy Block You've got their cool stream radiator here with varar fans put on laying DDC pump on here for moving the coolant and then a reservoir on the side right here uh it's fully assembled this is exactly how it comes out of the box the fans are already pre-assembled they're already wired onto this little logic board right here that controls uh pwm as well as power to the fans and uh the pump and then the block doesn't have any Lighting on it but it does have holes here where you could add LEDs if you want to try and add some lighting to it in the future and the only cables that you have to actually install for that are these two guys right here one power cable one pwm cable and that is it rubber tubing on here compression fittings that are much easier to access and add to if you're going to be doing uh additional radiators or additional blocks uh for like a GPU block the downside is it does not support AMD at all and I don't think they plan on in AMD either the other downside is because I use kind of an all-in-one or one siiz fits-all for Intel sockets if you're using socket 2011 or 2011-3 you might run into the issue where these little Nubs that are designed to push through the motherboard so it can screw into the 2011 socket might not work with your motherboard ask me how I know do I need to remind us all that we drilled through a motherboard thinking that we'd be okay and we weren't so yeah this has full support for all so sockets but some 2011 and 2011-3 it will not work on so you need to keep that in mind but when it comes to ease of installation the Predator easily decimates the other two by just mounting on the bracket for the chap the CPU and then mounting it to your case and two cables and everything is powered pump and fans which is trust me in terms of ease of installation it doesn't get any easier than that one now before we can talk about value you have to know what you're getting for your money so we've already talked about the materials we've already talked about how easy they are to install uh We've also talked about uh things like expandability and how easy it is to service them etc etc so before we show the temperatures the test bed is an Intel x99 motherboard 5930k uh overclocked to 4.4 GHz at 1.25 volts which I think is pretty standard most people would be able to get that clock at that voltage it's not a lot of volts but it's also not as low as the voltage could be so we're pumping some heat into these bad boys to really see how well they can handle it but stress testing on a six core 12-thread CPU like the 5930k that's overclocked uh while also stressing the CPU cache as well as the FPU means that there could be a lot of heat in these chips so that's why I thought that that would be really appropriate to do it with these three units so with that said let's go ahead and look at the temperatures and then we'll talk about some closing thoughts on these coolers and then hopefully I've armed you with the information it takes for you guys to be able to go out and get the best deal when it comes to buying your all- in-one water cooling units and you'll have more money left over for hookers and blow transition now trust me my reaction was very similar to yours when it comes to the charts yeah the one that performed the best in terms of temperature was the Corsair h100i now I ran these tests multiple times I spent all day I mean from sun up to sundown doing these tests in different types of ambient temperatures cooler temperatures hotter temperature because it got water as the day went on and as you can see by running all three of these with fans at 100% the h100i was by far the best performing in terms of temperature however once we take fan control and fan speed into account and we' slow the fans down so that we can have an acoustically pleasing experience because trust me the h100i with these uh SP fans on here running at full speed what 2700 RPM holy hell is the thing unbearable to listen to so performed extremely well but if you're okay with having a leaf blower inside your computer those are the temperatures you got so once we slowed the fans down on all three of these with the pwm pwm setting in the motherboard set to silent well this is what we got so when you're looking at benchmarks and things in different uh editors or different magazines or online Ed editorials it's important to really pay attention to what the RPM speed is set to for the fans now we already know the vodar fans are absolutely freaking amazing and that really shows here once you slow down the fans now the Helix fans I've actually used these independently in all-in-one water cooling Loops before in fact my original white NZXT switch 810 case with the AMD build uh that I actually had when I started my channel was using these exact swifttech Helix fans not the pwm ones but the DC ones that I controlled and slowed down myself but when Acoustics matter then the EK Predator 240 really stood out where it had a lot less drop off in temperatures when it came to uh Acoustics being involved in slowing down the fans than the other two did so you really have to ask yourself when it comes to buying these units what is it you're looking for are you just looking for flat out the best performance you can possibly get at the sacrifice of any noise level then the h100i is certainly going to be the the unit to go with but at those speeds constant RPMs like that fan running full speed pump running full speed uh I really wouldn't know how long your unit would last I would venture to say that inside of 2 years you're replacing it because it died and that's where the other two units come in because in terms of their quality of Parts being used they're going to last years and years over the h100i now obviously when it comes to Value that's not something I can tell you whether or not it's worth it to you I can tell you that personally for me an all-in-one water cooling Loop that's expandable and has off-the-shelf parts that you would use in a custom Loop are much more in uh enticing and and incentive to me to buy than something like an h100i if I was using the system daily overclocking it putting a lot of heat into it and wanting to maybe expand in the future the extra cost associated with that gives me a better value remember value does not mean which one is cheapest it means which one gives you more for your money and obviously the h220x and the Predator 240 are offering that but then when it comes to ease of use and aesthetically pleasing to me personally the Predator 240 offers me more when it comes to that aspect than the h220x but today's video was not about telling you which one is better it's about giving you the information between these three to give you guys uh hopefully what it takes for you to determine for yourself which is the better unit for you so I thought this was a fun video to do where we just kind of compared the three and give you some insight onto what's on the market when it comes to all in one water cooling Loops versus expandable Loops because I think the future is going to look more like this we're going to start seeing all of the brands offering expandable Loops like that and that's where companies like Corsair are kind of screwed when it comes to the Future in my opinion because remember Corsair rebrands acch units where acch is the one that has to come up with those designs where swifttech and Predator made by uh EK are all built in house and they control everything when it comes to those units all right guys thanks for watching I hope this video was fun for you October has been a water cooling month where I've done more water cooling videos in October don't ask me why it's October I don't know it just happened that way maybe it's because October is the first cool month you get after summer and then you can start jacking up your overclocks and getting more performance and you've got to keep those temperatures in check well keep them in check with these units and sound off in the comments on which unit makes more sense to you and why not just don't just say swifttech sucks cuz you know what sucks that comment because it says nothing it gives no information and it really makes you sound like a doofus if you think it sucks say why it sucks and if you think the h100 is better say why it's better not h100 better cuz it's got a red box I'm sorry but some of the comments sound just that bad all right guys time to get out of here follow on social media if You' got any questions you want to tell me that I suck that's okay I do kind of suck all right guys I'll see you in the next one\n"